District Conference Announcements: June 2016

This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song: Looking Ahead to District Conference

Rhonda Pittman Gingrich, Moderator

Without our congregations and the members of our congregations, there would be no Northern Plains District.  It has been a privilege and blessing to travel around the district, worshipping with our congregations and engaging in conversation with our members. At the time of writing, I have been in twelve of our congregations and will visit at least four more before we gather for District Conference.  As we celebrate 150 years of ministry in the upper Midwest during District Conference, it will also be important to share the stories of our congregations. To that end, we are inviting congregations to participate in a number of projects.

Celtic/Story Crosses

When traveling in Ireland, one comes across large stone crosses in cemeteries, town squares, and parks. Carved into the face of these crosses are images that symbolize the life of the community. Some of the images depict biblical stories. Some of the images depict happenings in the particular community. All speak to the identity of the community. As I visit congregations, I am taking time to listen to their stories and together we are creating story crosses modeled after these  Celtic crosses. I encourage them to include stories from their life together, biblical passages that are foundational to their identity, and songs/hymns that give expression to their faith. As they share, either I record these stories with words inside an outline of a cross on a large piece of newsprint, or if there happens to be an artist in the congregation, they record these stories in images inside the outline of a cross. (See photos of examples.) These story crosses will be displayed at District Conference. If I am not scheduled to visit your congregation, I hope you will take some time to create a story cross and bring it with you to District Conference to be displayed with the others. It is truly amazing to hear about the particularities of each congregation and to see the emergence of common threads that bind us together.

Symbols of Congregational Ministry

The District Conference Planning Committee also invites each congregation to bring something that represents your congregational story to District Conference. These items will be used as part of the worship center created during worship on Friday evening. A member of your congregation will be asked to bring it forward at a particular point in the service and possibly share one sentence about what the item represents. The possibilities are endless. The item you choose to bring might be an historical artifact, it might be a piece of art, it might be a symbol of a long-time and continuous ministry in which you are engaged, it might be a symbol of new vitality.  Hopefully the selection of the item won’t be a unilateral decision made by the pastor or a small committee, but a decision made by the congregation as you reflect together about your story and the ways your story intersects with God’s story. Along with your item, please bring a printed paragraph that can be placed with your item describing in more detail why you chose this particular item and its significance within your congregational life.

150 Random Acts of Kindness

The District Conference Planning Committee also wants to remind congregations of the challenge to collectively engage in 150 random acts of kindness—or to put it another way, 150 acts of ministry—within your surrounding communities in the months leading up to District Conference. We are celebrating a significant milestone in our life together, but we don’t want to focus solely on the past. As God’s people we are part of a continuing story. What better way to celebrate that than to actually embody our identity as a “sent people” and to reach out in service to those in need. As you engage in your random acts of kindness, take pictures of your efforts.  Send your pictures and stories to Hannah Button-Harrison communications@nplains.org for publication in the district newsletter and possibly on the website AND bring a copy of your pictures to District Conference for inclusion in a collage that will celebrate the ways we are still engaged in vital ministry in the upper Midwest.